Notifications of cabinet appointments be made public: PML-N

Lahore - PML-N Central Spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb has demanded that in the aftermath of Farrukh Saleem fiasco, the appointment notifications of the prime minister and the entire cabinet must be shared to avoid further confusion.

In a statement on Friday, Marriyum said that the disgraceful and embarrassing situation created for the government in the Farrukh Saleem case had merited this demand. “What if the prime minister or any of his ministers commit an irreparable blunder and later the hoard of liars flee and exonerate themselves by saying they were not formally notified to that office. They would claim that all steps taken by the cabinet were a farce because they did not receive a notification,” Marriyum questioned.

The former information minister stressed that considering the deplorable governance and one blunder after the other, it was even more essential to see these notifications in order to fix responsibility of these disasters later.

Marriyum demanded that the government should bring forward their announced and unannounced advisers and the people of Pakistan should be told who sits in core government meetings without any official notification.

She demanded that FIRs must be registered against those impersonating and infiltrating meetings of national interest without any formal notification because this practice is raising many dangerous questions. Those who have lied regarding their positions or impersonated government office for personal enrichment should be tried in courts, she added.

INP adds: Dr Farrukh Saleem revealed he regularly attended meetings at the Prime Minister House until December 24.

Dr Farrukh Saleem, who was supposed to be appointed as the government’s spokesperson on economy in October 2018, has revealed he regularly attended meetings at the PM House until December 24.

Saleem, who appeared on a private TV channel’s talk show, said he was never informed over the past three months that he was not a government spokesperson, and that he was shocked to find out he was never appointed in the first place.

“There was no communication of this. I attended all the meetings including the last one held on December 24, under Prime Minister Imran Khan. All the meetings happened at the Prime Minister’s Office,” Saleem said.

Earlier this week, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry claimed Saleem was never appointed as the government’s spokesperson on economy. “Clarification is needed Farrukh Saleem is not spokesperson of the government. We ought to have appointed Dr Sahib government’s spokesperson on economy but later it transpired that PM office has banned any hiring so his appointment could never transpire. He is free to have any opinion,” Fawad had tweeted.

The minister’s tweet came in reply to Saleem’s comment on the state of the country’s economy, where he had said that the government did not know what it was doing and had no plans to fix the economy. “We need to find an alternative solution to this rather than taking aid from different countries. The government is not curing the disease, but hiding the symptoms. The results of devaluing rupee are not good. Despite a 30 percent devaluation of the rupee, our exports are still on the decline,” Saleem had said.

“We have to consider an alternative strategy,” he had suggested while being referred to as the government’s spokesperson on economic affairs by the media.